


The Brothers Plisetsky

by gyozanohime



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ballet, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Humor, Ice Skating, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Parent Trap AU, Siblings, Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-05 04:41:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13380393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyozanohime/pseuds/gyozanohime
Summary: Nikolai Plisetsky was having an out-of-body experience. It was the only explanation for the scowling blond face—his own face—glaring back at him from the other side of the counter.A Parent Trap AU.





	1. The Boy on the Other Side

The dining hall was noisy with chatter and the clinking of utensils on plates, the students happy to be done with the morning’s orientation activities. Participants in the East Coast Theater Ballet’s Summer Dance Program had arrived that morning, and after a short welcome ceremony and small group tours, they had been handed their schedules, assigned living quarters and given an hour to unpack. After lunch, the program would really begin. Nikolai tried to be happy, to remember that Papa had let him decide, and he had chosen to come. His roommates seemed nice, too, and that was lucky in itself. He couldn’t imagine spending a nearly a month with someone he hated. Guang Hong confessed nervously that it was his first camp, and asked where Nikolai was from. Leo immediately started calling him Nick, and even though he didn’t care for it, he decided to let it go. _At least it’s not Nikki, I guess._ Halfway through unpacking, holding his pointe shoes in his hands, he remembered that one of his classes would be devoted entirely to pointe. It wasn’t a cure-all, but something like excitement had started to build in his chest as he put his things away, as he placed a photo album under his pillow and taped a poster of his (second) favorite ice skater on the wall. By the time Leo suggested they all head to lunch together, he’d felt considerably lighter.

The food options left something to be desired, but he was too busy answering Leo’s questions about his ballet studio in Brooklyn to give more than a passing thought to how much he missed dedushka’s pirozhki. He’d selected his food and moved down the line to the utensils. He was reaching for a fork when a slender hand shot into the utensils bin from the opposite direction. That was when Nikolai glanced up and saw _himself_ standing on the other side of the counter. Dressed differently and with shorter hair, but no less _him_. Their eyes met, and a hundred possibilities rushed through Nikolai’s head, of mirrors and alternate dimensions, and that dark place Luke Skywalker visits in the swamp—all while his doppelganger’s disinterested expression morphed into shock, then confusion, before settling into an affronted glare.

Nikolai Plisetsky was having an out-of-body experience. It was the only explanation.

“Yo, you’re holding up the line,” Leo nudged him with the corner of his try, bringing him out of his trance.

“Right. Sorry.”

“Tch. Loser,” said the boy on the other side, walking away without so much as a second glance.

“Nick, you okay?” Leo prompted a bit later. “You’ve been staring at your salad for like five minutes.” They’d settled down at a table with a few other students they had met that morning, and everyone else had tucked into their meals. But Nikolai couldn’t stop thinking about _the other him_. Instead of answering, he turned around in his chair, craning his neck to look over people’s heads until he spotted the black jacket with a leopard print hood. The boy’s back was to him, but the hood was up now, covering his head so only the ends of his shoulder-length blond hair peeked out, but that just made him stand out more. Nikolai kept throwing careful (but, really, very obvious) glances in his direction trying to make sure he was still there—still here?—that he was real, but the other boy wasn’t looking. He was barely moving at all.

“Nick. Nick?” Guang Hong lightly tapped his shoulder.

“Did you see that guy in the leopard print jacket?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“You didn’t notice anything about him?”

“Apart from him being a jerk?” Leo joked. “Not really. I was scoping out a table. Why?”

“Do you know him?” asked Guang Hong.

“I thought he looked—” _exactly like me_ , he thought. “Familiar,” he said instead, starting to doubt himself. He hadn’t gotten a good look, the blond tresses were worn loose and partially obscured his face—but it was a face Nikolai recognized on instinct, because it stared back at him every morning. But what if it was a trick of the light? What if it was all in his head?

“What, you mean like a celebrity?”

“Yeah,” he lied. “Something like that.”

“Well, I’ve never seen him before but he’s got the attitude for it,” Leo observed, following the direction of Nikolai’s gaze. The _other him_ was more relaxed now, slouching in his seat, a bent leg resting on the empty chair next to him. A dark-haired boy sitting on his other side—the only other person at that table—said something and the blond laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. It all looked very normal.

What could he really say? “Never mind. I think I’m just—” _seeing things._ _Having a nervous breakdown._ _Possibly stuck in one of those_ Twilight Zone _episodes dedushka used to watch._

“Hey, forget that guy. He’s an asshole. You don’t even know each other, right?

“Right.” Leo was missing the point. The boy’s words had meant nothing, but his face…

“Nikolai, Leo, you guys should shut up and eat,” said Joti, who stopped by their table to see how they had settled in. She was an older student that had shown them around that morning. (Her name was actually Harjot, “but Joti is fine,” she’d told them.) “You’ve only got 15 minutes left for lunch, and trust me, you don’t want your stomach to rumble in class. They are serious about nutrition here.”

“Crap,” Nikolai muttered, standing up and rushing back to the _stupid utensils table_. He’d never gotten his fork.

 

__________________________________________________________

 

“I’m really sorry, Koka-chan,” Yuuri apologized. And he was. And he knew it wasn’t enough. No matter what Nikolai’s therapist said, he hadn’t _wanted_ his son to leave home. Hadn’t he gone through enough upheaval? But Koka had wanted to go, and he had let him, and now Yuuri was in Thailand—what was he doing leaving Koka on his own?

“Baka otosan! Will you stop apologizing?” Yuuri couldn’t keep the small smile off his face as Koka rolled his eyes at him over FaceTime. It took a lot to get his son mad. “I know you didn’t have a choice about—well, you know. So just stop it, okay? Onegai. ”

“Koka-chan, I’m glad your Japanese is improving, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. What will obachan and ojichan think?” He teased.

“Sumimasen, papa. I will work hard and remember to curse in Russian.” “Koka-chan!” “Oh, look my roommates are back. Guys, say hi to my dad.”

Koka rambled on about the other students, the teachers he’d met so far, and which classes he liked best, and Yuuri drank it all in, trying not to show how much he missed his son. Yuuri could tell Koka was sad under the effusive descriptions of the large classrooms and how many windows they had, but he was strong, too. Stronger than Yuuri had been at his age. “How is Uncle P.?”

“Really excited about the show. ”

“You see? Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to cancel on him?” Koka was really too sweet.

“ _You can come home anytime, Koka_ ,” Yuuri promised, switching to Russian for privacy because his son was more comfortable with it than Japanese. “ _Minami can pick you up_. _Or I’ll fly you out to wherever we are, and you can tour Thailand with us_.”

“ _I know. I’m fine. Don’t be embarrassing_.” So, of course, Yuuri had to embarrass him.

“I love you,” he said loudly in English, and Yuuri could hear the other boys snickering in the background.

“ _Papa! You jerk_ ,” Koka laughed, and damn, it was great to hear that sound again. Then, softer, “ _I love you, too_.”

 

__________________________________________________________

 

“Thompson, I never want to see a bent leg from you again. Ever. Pretend you don’t have knees. Except during a plié, then you definitely have knees. Do you understand me? Plisetsky, that leg can go higher. But hold on to that turnout.”

It was only the second day of class, but Yuri was already sick of this place. He knew exactly what he’d like to do with his working leg, but he grit his teeth and willed his leg higher. “There you go. Beautiful.” _Whatever._ _I don’t even want to be here._ Ms. Kent had been picking on him the whole class, and Yuri was getting really fed up. She was always shouting at him from the other end of the room, as if his mistakes were so obvious she could see them a mile off. First, his backbend wasn’t far enough. Then, “Plisetsky, a smidge higher on that demipointe.” By the time she found fault with his cambré, tapping the back of his neck with a finger as she walked by, he’d had it. “The neck, sir. Relax the neck. Remember, the neck is part of the spine!” It didn’t make sense. _No school is more demanding than the Russian ballet_ , he thought. So, what, was the teacher stupid? Did Americans have different (wrong) standards? Or did something happen to him on the flight over from Russia? He should have listened to Yakov and stayed home. Clearly, this was all Victor’s fault. He was supposed to be spending time with Victor and _skating_ , not getting dumped off at this stupid ballet camp for two weeks while Victor did who knows what (Yuri definitely did not want to know).

 When class was nearly over, Ms. Kent said, “Plisetsky, come over here a minute.”

“Yes, Ms. Kent,” said two voices in sync. Yuri turned to see who had spoken over him, and ugh—of course it had to be _that loser from lunch yesterday_.

“What’s this?” Ms. Kent was giving him an odd look. “Oh, I said Plisetsky, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” he said, while hearing, “Coming, Ms. Kent,” at the same time.

“What is your problem?” Yuri demanded. “I’m Plisetsky.”

“Okay, well, so am I,” said _that loser_. He stared at Yuri like _he_ was the one that was crazy.

“Okay, enough. All the Plisetskys, come over here a moment.” She walked over to her bag and pulled out what must have been the class roster. “Everyone else, take these last five minutes to stretch at your own pace. Make sure you breathe into those stretches. Reach into your extensions.”

Yuri walked over to the teacher, who was on the other end of the room. “Please excuse us, Ms. Kent,” the fake Plisetsky apologized. “Which of us were you speaking to?”

Ms. Kent was silent for a moment, glancing back and forth between the two of them, then down to her roster, then back up at the two of them. “Well, you're definitely both supposed to be here. I’ve never had twins in the same class before. And you both show promise, how marvelous. Your parents must be so proud.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, since I have you both here... You should really work on giving your movement more expression,” she advised Yuri. “Study the way your brother moves, it’s beautiful.” _I am going to fucking murder that piece of shit_ , Yuri seethed. “And you,” she turned to the long-haired boy, “you are going to have to work on your strength. With a few changes to your routine, you should improve in no t—”

“Wait,” Yuri interrupted, finally finding his voice. “You think I’m related to _him_?”

The other boy’s eyes—blue eyes, he noticed—went wide. Ha, blue eyes weren’t nearly as cool as green. “He means,” the fake Plisetsky said, “sorry for interrupting you, Ms. Kent, but we aren’t brothers.” In spite of the apology, the wannabe-Plisetsky looked just as upset as Yuri felt. Huh.

“We aren’t _related_ ,” Yuri corrected. _As if you’d be so lucky_ , he thinks. “And don’t speak for me.”

 “Oh,” the teacher was stunned. “Oh. But you… How peculiar. I’ve never seen something like this before. One second. You there, in the middle,” she shouts, looking over their heads at the students at the barre. “Yes, Michaelson, do that again, properly. Where was I? Right. You’re really not related?”

“We’ve never officially met,” Nikolai informs her.

“Oh, well, let’s remedy that. I’ll have to call you by your first names.”

“I’m Yuri,” he said, before the stupid poser could speak. “Yuri _Plisetsky_ , from Russia,” he added for good measure.

 “So that must make you Nikolai,” she said to the other blond.

“Yes, Ms. Kent.” Then he added, “From Brooklyn.” Was this idiot mocking him?

“Oh, goodness, are you Yuri’s boy?” Oh, so now they were going to steal his first name, too? What did that even mean? “I don’t suppose you remember me? You were so little when we met. Give my regards to your father. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“I will, Ms. Kent.”

“Not since the adoption, in fact. Is he still doing ice shows?”

“He’s actually—” he stopped talking, casting a furtive look in Yuri’s direction.

 “Oh, right! You can go now, Yuri. But, wow,” she said, looking between them once more. “Is Plisetsky a common Russian name?”

“It must be,” the other boy said looking at Yuri once more. “ _You’re dead, loser_ ,” Yuri muttered in Russian, unable to contain himself. “ _I’m going to kill you, and then the name will be less common.”_ And when a blank stare was all he got, he added _, “Are you even Russian? I bet you don’t even speak our mother tongue, you pathetic fraud._ ”

The teacher frowned but before she could reprimand him, the other boy said, “Oh, he says sorry he sucks at English. He doesn’t know how to say it, but he knows that he moves like a zombie and it makes him really frustrated. Obviously, I mean, look at his expression. But he promises to try harder, and thank you for taking the time to point out his weak areas.” He capped the whole speech off with a bow to the teacher.

“Well, you’re very welcome, Yuri. You’re so young, and already show great promise. Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said, patting Yuri on the shoulder. “Class dismissed!” She announced. “Good job, everyone! See you tomorrow. You go on, Yuri, I want to talk to Nikolai. But make sure you stretch.”

Yuri didn’t know what to do with himself. Never before had he been so furious that words caught in his throat. He grabbed his gear bag and left the classroom without another word.

He walked down the hallway until he found a small, unused studio where he could stretch. In the middle of a backbend—a perfect backbend—his thoughts became coherent once more. Just who did this other Plisetsky think he was, turning up with Yuri’s face (except ugly) and his hair (except stupid long), and his name (ugh)?

The door opened a short while later, as Yuri was stretching in arabesque. _Now what?_

“Yura.” It was Otabek. “Want to sneak out and go skating?”

“Beka,” Yuri almost sighed with relief, but that would have been really uncool, so he didn’t. Instead, he straightened up, the light of a new idea shining in his eyes. “Yes.” This had been the worst day of Yuri’s life, and Nikolai was going to pay.

On the walk there, skates stuffed into a backpack, Yuri told him about his horrible day and broached the subject of his revenge. “Hey, Beka, you know that story you told me yesterday, about that prank you played on your rinkmate?”

“Yeah.”

“Exactly how much trouble did you get into for that?”

 

 


	2. The Clone Wars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EPISODE II
> 
> The Clone Wars
> 
> There is unrest among the students  
> in the summer dance program. Yuri Plisetsky  
> has declared his intentions of exacting revenge on  
> Nikolai. This antagonistic decision, aided by the support  
> of Yuri's friend Otabek, will set off a chain of events that will  
> make it difficult for the teachers to maintain peace and order in  
> the school...

Nikolai was not having a good week.

Sure, this wasn’t the Mariinsky Ballet, but ECB Theater was much more intense than the little ballet studio in Brooklyn. The classes were harder, the schedule inflexible. The restricted hours and confined living space took some getting used to as well. He felt awkward sharing a space with people who had unfamiliar habits. He missed Papa and even Minami, and discovered it was _so hard_ to sleep without Vegeta at his feet.

And then there was Yuri Plisetsky. Their unfortunate resemblance was starting to cause problems for him. Unknown teachers would stop to talk to him, praising his form in a way he knew wasn’t meant for him. Nikolai had been ‘accidentally’ shoved twice in the hallways, students apologizing a moment later—“Crap, sorry,”—when they noticed his waist-length hair. More people caught on as the days went by, but…

“I thought it was you,” Joti explained, after a run-in with Yuri in the dining hall. “All I did was ask why you’d cut your hair, you know? And he just exploded at me. He’s like…he’s like the ‘Spookyfish’ version of you.” Nikolai didn’t know what that was, but ‘spooky’ sounded right. It was unsettling to be in Yuri’s presence and Nikolai found it hard not to stare. 

And then _someone_ had painted all over his pointe shoes with red nail polish—the good ones he had for jumping. He'd been dismissed from class and had endured a resounding lecture on school-appropriate attire from Madame Conners out in the hallway, the other students snickering inside the classroom. Instead of skating like he’d planned, he’d spent the afternoon prepping another pair, stitching his elastic and ribbons on with painstaking care, softening the box, and doing relevés in his room.

By Saturday, he’d _needed_ to skate, needed the smell of the rink, the cold air in his lungs. He moved through step sequences, thrilled by the reassuring whisper of blades on the ice. He jumped, his blood pumping as his body left the ice, and counted the rotations. He spun and twirled, and practiced his transitions. He did everything Coach Sara asked. And then he did it again. And again. And again. Sometimes he fell. But he got up, brushed the ice from his pants and the sweat from his face, and did it all again until Sara called for one last jump. So Nikolai picked up speed, planted his toe pick behind his other foot and vaulted into the air. He landed cleanly, buzzing with satisfaction at the sound of the blade cutting into the surface. He hadn’t felt this happy all week.

“Nikolai, that was so good!” Sara said, clapping him on the shoulder. But even ice skating, it seemed, was destined to be ruined.

“Oi!”

 He turned toward the sound, and Nikolai’s spirits sunk. There, at the boards, stood Otabek Altin and Yuri Plisetsky.

 

__________________________________________________________

 

Yuri stared at the spot where that loser had just landed a jump. “That bastard.”

“Weird,” Beka said, humming the theme song from _X-Files_.

 “Shut up. No it isn’t.” Yuri pulled viciously on his laces, tangling them in his rush to lace up.

 “It’s a little weird,” Beka insisted. “That jump was g—”

 “Don’t,” Yuri cut him off. “He got lucky, that’s all.” He pulled off his skate guards and sped on to the rink. “Oi!” Yuri braked hard, spraying flecks of ice at the fake him. “ _What the hell are you doing here?_ ” he demanded.

“ _Kuso_.” Nikolai rolled his eyes. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

 “Let’s get one thing straight: This rink, the school, this city—it doesn’t need two Plisetskys. So go be a copycat somewhere else.”

 “You leave! You don’t even want to be here.”

 “How the fuck would you know?”

 “The whole school knows you think Russia is better.”

 “Well, it is!”

 “So go home. _I can say it in Russian if it that makes it easier for you_. _Leave_.”

 “I was here first.”

 “You literally weren’t.”

 “I started skating here Tuesday,” he insisted. “Otabek is my witness.” Next to him, Otabek nodded.

 “Ugh. _Anata satei desu_ ,” Nikolai grumbled.

  _“Idiot. I can’t understand your insults in Japanese. Can’t you even figure that out?”_

“ _Baka,”_ he rolled his eyes. “ _Sore ga watashi no itodesu_."

"No, you're a baka." Yuri knew that one.

"Look, I just came here to skate.”

“You call that skating? My dead grandmother has a better toe loop _,_ ” Then, feeling inspired, he added, “I'd say it needs more _polish_.”

“You—” The blue eyes flashed with a look that almost startled Yuri. Almost.

 “Yura, we’re going to get kicked out,” Otabek warned. People were staring. A frowning rink employee was approaching, the ice grips on his shoes clomping on the ice with every step.

“What are you going to do about it?” That clone was still just staring. Then, without another word, he turned and skated away. "That's righ!" Yuri watched him go, a broad grin on his face and a feeling of triumph swelling in his chest. “Loser!” He didn’t even care when the rink employee yelled at him.

 

__________________________________________________________

 

“I just want to stop in here really quick,” Nikolai explained. 

“Why this place?” Minami asked, distaste coloring his words. “I could have taken you shopping.” The man had picked Nikolai up that afternoon and taken him to see Dedushka. He was getting better, and he had spent a good part of the visit telling his grandfather about his classes (but not about Yuri), and then they played chess until it was time to go. Minami was driving him back to the school when Nikolai spotted a dusty shop selling knockoff sports merchandise and an assortment of random meme T-shirts. He sorted through a pile of them until he found what he was looking for. “Those aren’t original or stylish,” Minami sniffed.

“It has a Shiba Inu, though,” he said, holding up a scratchy cotton shirt that said "SUCH FASHION" under a low-resolution image of his favorite dog. “Sort of. Anyway, I won’t wear it to class.” _Or ever_. The shirt was bright red.

 

 __________________________________________________________

 

Yuri hoped that if he stayed in the back of the classroom, the teacher wouldn’t notice. He had convinced Ms. Kent that it was a trick of the light. And he had suggested that Madame Conners’ glasses might be dirty. He just needed to get through his technique class, and then he could—

“Yuri Plisetski!” _Fuck._ The beak-nosed teacher approached, eyes flitting to the next student and then back to Yuri.

 “Yes, Mr. Fabre?”

 “Is your shirt _pink_?”

 

  __________________________________________________________

 

**_7 missed calls. 37 messages._ **

 

> > _This place is lame. I don’t want to stay here. Ballet is stupid._

_> > The ice rink here sucks. The coach you hired pays more attention to his sister than to me. It’s creepy. _

> > _Yakov says he’ll pick me up at the airport if you let me go home._

_> > How come Lilia can’t teach me ballet? Yakov won’t tell me._

_> > I’m using your credit card to buy bleach. _

_> > The bleach didn’t work. I’m buying new shirts. And new underwear.  
_

_> > Aren’t you going to ask why? _

> > _Stop ignoring my calls, asshole._

 

Victor sighed at the backlog of messages from his son, each one angrier than the last. And the ones from Yakov, berating him for disrupting Yuri’s training and being an irresponsible father. Victor was trying to be better. He had told himself it would be worth it, that Yuri would be happy once he found out the real reason Victor had agreed to some tour dates with World on Ice. And the reason he’d dragged Yuri into it. Victor had wanted to surprise him, but all his plans had gone wrong. He was running out of time, and all he had to show for it was an envelope with a faded return address and a list of possible locations. The phone rang again, and this time Victor answered.

“Yuratchka! How are your classes?”

 “It’s about time, _Victor_. When are you coming to get me?”

 “Yura, I don’t want you calling me that.”

 “I’m not calling you ‘papa’ after what you did.”

 “You’re acting like I ditched you the minute we landed.”

 “I saw water and a giant hole in the ground. You said we were going to New York next. This is a whole other state, you lying sack of—.”

 “Hey,” Victor cut him off, wondering where his son had learned to curse. “That’s enough. I showed you the schedule. I told you I had to take care of some business in between.”

 “Does this business have a _dick_?”

 Victor’s anger fizzled out. “It’s not like that, Yura. I mean it.” He really, really did. Maybe he should just tell him everything. But what if he failed? Yuri was already angry with him. This could break his heart, and then he’d hate Victor even more.

 “Whatever! You don’t know what it’s like here. The food sucks and the teachers are incompetent. My roommate thinks his name is a _style_.”

 “Yura, I sent you to ballet school, not boot camp. And how can you be asking to move in with Yakov next season when it’s been a week and you want to go home?”

“Ten days! And that’s different. Yakov loves me.” That stung, though it was true enough. Yakov adored Yuri, and the boy had him wrapped around his finger. Even when Yuri defied his coach, Victor was sure to get the blame. “You have no discipline, Vitya. How can the boy respect me if he doesn’t respect his own father?”

 “I love you more.” Victor tried to think of when he had lost Yuri. Fatherhood had been a fact he hadn’t expected—or wanted at the time, if he were honest. But Yuri had filled his otherwise empty life with a light and purpose he had desperately needed. And in spite of everything he’d lost, Victor was grateful that his stupidity had at least given him the green-eyed little monster that would cling to his hand and say, “So _you_ don’t get lost, Papochka.”

 “Prove it." _I'm trying to, Yura._ Yuri was quiet for a moment and then, “Please get me out of here…Papa.” Victor winced. He could hear the effort it took his son to say it.

 “I will, Yura. I just need a little more time.”

 “You suck! I hate you. I’m never calling you that again, you stupid old man!” The call ended.

 

   __________________________________________________________

 

 

“What do you mean, your hair is orange?” Yuuri asked over the phone while he waited for FaceTime to connect on his computer. When Nikolai came into focus…

Yuuri gasped, then immediately clamped his mouth shut and made a blank face. Which was rendered useless when, next to him, Phichit screamed, “OH MY GOD.” Yuuri pulled him off camera, shoved him into the suite’s living room—“Don’t come back until you’ve learned to control yourself”—and slammed the bedroom door behind him.

He took a moment to collect himself before sitting in front of the computer once more. _It’s just hair, it will grow._ _Okay_. “Okay, it’s, um—not really your color?”

“Papa, I look like Vitamin C,” Nikolai sobbed, eyes red and brimmed with tears. In the background, someone was patting his shoulder and murmuring that it would be fine. At least he wasn’t alone. “I’m going to have to cut it all off.”

“No, you won’t,” Yuuri assured him, hoping it was the truth. He was at a loss for how to comfort his son through a computer screen. “How did this happen?”

“Dye in my shampoo bottle.”

Who would do that? How did that work? How did kids _know_ these things? “Okay. One second..." He opened up a browser window and started typing—and "dye in shampoo prank" was apparently a common search term. "I think it’s not permanent dye. We can fix this. Tomorrow. I’ll find you a good colorist. But, Koka, what’s going on?”

“Nothing…”

“Solnyshko, your hair is orange. Something is wrong. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“I know,” he sniffed, wiping his nose with a tissue that was thrust in his face “I’m sorry, I just…” And then he shrugged.

“Are the other kids bullying you?”

“No! No, most of the kids are nice.”

Yuuri didn’t miss the “most.” He opened another window and started looking up flight schedules. Koka must have understood the set of Yuuri’s face because he asked, “Papa, what are you doing?”

“Looking for a flight home.” For just a moment, his son looked relieved. Then he frowned and asked his friend to leave.

After a moment, he said, “But the show. Phichit needs you,” he protested.

“I’m just a dime-a-dozen skater, Koka. Anyone could take my spot.” To Yuuri’s consternation, Koka started crying again. Tears flooded his eyes, his breath hitched and a flush spread across his face.

“D-don’t say that! You can’t come home! It was a prank, okay? Just a stupid prank. Can’t I just get this fixed?”

“Koka-chan, this is too much...”

“Please, Papa,” he begged, blue eyes shining, tears clinging to his dampened eyelashes. “Please don’t do this.”

Yuuri’s heart stopped. _“Please, Yuuri. Please don’t do this.”_ Yuuri forced himself to exhale. When he could breathe again, he said, “Fine, I’ll fly you out to me instead. You can practice ballet with me, like you used to.”

“Papa, I want to stay! And I want you to do the show. _Onegai shimasu_.” On the other side of the world, Nikolai stood up and bowed.

Yuuri sighed, but acquiesced. Koka only played the Japanese card when he was serious. It took a few minutes to convince him that Yuuri wasn’t going to abandon the show, or call the school, or have Minami pull him out of the dance program. But once he had calmed down, they said goodnight.

“Wow,” Phichit said from the bedroom door. “I haven’t heard you call yourself a mediocre skater since—” He left the sentence unfinished. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

Yuuri shook his head, and said nothing.

“Right. So, what's the plan?”

Yuuri really wanted to call the school and find out what was going on. But he had sort of let Koka believe he wouldn’t do that. It sounded like his son really wanted to handle this himself, and the therapist’s lecture on codependency still rang in Yuuri’s head. There was also a very real possibility that the school had no idea anything _was_ going on. “First,” he decided, “Find him a good colorist.”

“Have Minami do it. You’re useless at that stuff. And then?”

“I’m going to call Ms. Kent.” That wasn’t technically calling the school, and she might be able to shed some light on the situation. 

“Good. I'll understand if you need to go home. He _did_ look like Vitamin C.”

“Not helping.”

“Right. Sorry. Goodnight.”

Alone, in the dark, Yuuri buried his face in his pillow. For a moment, when Koka was begging him not to leave, he’d looked like Victor Nikiforov.

 

   __________________________________________________________

 

It started off completely innocent.

Nikolai had shown up to the rink early, just before the end of Yuri’s private session. He should have stayed away, but he got curious (his first mistake). So he shuffled up to the railing, and stood on the benches watching while trying not to be seen. The boy had his earbuds in, expression focused as he went through an ambitious choreographic sequence that drew Nikolai in. His phone was in his hand before he even thought about it (his second mistake). He hated to admit it, but Yuri was as good as he’d been bragging about in school. Yuri ended with his hands clasped, reaching out to the ceiling in supplication, and Nikolai took that as his cue to hide in the bathroom until the other boy left.

That afternoon, Nikolai sat in the common room (his third mistake) watching the footage on his tablet and wishing he know what song Yuri was listening to. Something classical, he’d bet. Inspired by the way he floated over the ice like a fairy, arms extended like wings in flight, Nikolai thought of Tchaikovsky. Muting the video on his tablet, he searched for Waltz of the Flowers on his phone’s YouTube app. It wasn’t right. Thinking of the impassioned bursts of movement, he switched to the introduction to Sleeping Beauty, but that was too fast. The graceful spiral into an axel led him to Waltz of the Snowflakes, and that actually worked nicely—until the two-minute mark when the soft, high vocals came in and it contrasted so sharply with the fierce concentration on Yuri’s face that Nikolai burst into giggles. And that was how Leo found him, curled up on the couch, a hand trying to stifle the laughter that shook his frame.

“What’s so funny? Are you watching Haru videos again?”

“N-no,” he gasped. And here he made his worst mistake of all. Because he showed Leo the video of Yuri Plistsky tripping lightly across the ice on his toe picks to the tune of Flight of the Bumblebee. And it became a game. A game that, as the minutes wore on, more students joined, eagerly offering suggestions. They moved from classical to catchy (or annoying) pop songs, each one more incongruous with the routine than the next. There were eight students now, some gathered around the tablet to watch, others lounging nearby making jokes and waiting for the next song to start. An iPhone commercial came on and the song was so very _Yuri_ , that the group burst into laughter and sang along with the commercial as the video of Yuri played. _“So what I got a attitude? Bitch, I got a attitude.”_ No one had noticed the two new people who were standing behind the couch. 

“Where did you get that?”

It was Yuri, red faced and wide-eyed, and shaking with rage.

Nikolai’s stomach sunk. An uncomfortable silence blanketed the room, broken by his frantic efforts to hide the tablet and shut off his phone. The crowd broke, and in a matter of seconds the lounge was deserted. It was just Leo and Nikolai facing a furious Yuri and stone-faced Otabek.

“You son of a bitch.”

 

  __________________________________________________________

 

Yuri sat in a chair outside the director’s office. He had band-aids on his arms and smelled like rubbing alcohol, and there was an ice pack in his hands. He knew what had happened, he just wasn’t sure how he had gotten there. One minute, he’d been standing in the student lounge and now he was waiting to be seen by the ECB Theater program director—and probably to get kicked out. Next to him sat Mr. Fabre, stern and straight-backed, and not looking at him. Ms. Kent was pacing up and down the hall, typing out messages on her phone, with Nikolai sitting well out of reach. He wondered if he was going to blame the whole thing on Yuri.

 

_“You son of a bitch.”_

_“Serves you right,” Nikolai said, standing up and coming around the couch to face him. “Stay away from my things from now on.”_

_“That was private, you asshole,” Yuri snarled, pointing at the tablet._

_“So are my shoes, and my skates, and my hair!”_

_“Agh! You and that stupid hair!”_

 

Yuri remembered launching himself at Nikolai, grabbing his ponytail and yanking with all his might.

 

_“I’m going to pull it all out of your head, you vain piece of shit!”_

 

He remembered shouting, the pinch of fingernails digging into his arms, being shoved against the wall.

 

_“Let me go, you bastard son of a bitch!”_

_“TAKE THAT BACK!”_

 

They had rolled across the floor, knocking over lamps, a bookcase, and a bust of the school’s founder, but he only knew that because he’d been told. They probably had an itemized list that Victor was going to have pay for. _Ha_.

The door opened and he was shuffled into the office and directed to stand in front of the desk, next to Nikolai, who was holding an ice pack to his head. He had obviously been crying, tracks of dry tears visible along his cheeks. Ms. Gallen, the director, was having a whispered conversation with their teachers in a corner of the office, so he took advantage. _"You're pathetic,"_ he murmured in Russian, just in case.  

Nikolai shot him a glare and whispered, _“We’re so fucked. Don’t you have any shame?”_

Yuri knew he was in trouble, and not just with the director. Victor was going to be unbearable. But if it forced Victor to take him home… Well, he wasn’t going to cry like a baby. He was about to say so, too, but shut his mouth and looked straight ahead when Ms. Gallen cleared her throat.

“I should expel you both," she declared without preamble. "Tonight. I could call your parents and wash my hands of you. No one would expect otherwise after such savage, indecorous behavior,” she said firmly.

 _Good_ , Yuri thought. Beside him, Nikolai released a shuddering breath.

“Such promising talent, wasted. And brothers, who should be—”

Yuri snorted. “We’re not brothers.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve never seen _him_ before in my life,” Nikolai affirmed.

Ms. Gallen came around the desk and stood up close to Yuri. In open disbelief she turned to Nikolai, then back to Yuri, adjusting the glasses on her wrinkled face as if that would somehow break the illusion. “But you must be. Aren’t they?” she asked Ms. Kent.

“No, Ms. Gallen. Just look-alikes.”

“You have the same last name.”

“Coincidence. It’s caused a few hiccups,” Mr. Fabre added.

“How remarkable.” She crossed her arms and leaned back on her desk, lips pursed in thought. Yuri was getting really tired of people saying that. “I understand,” she continued, “that there have been other incidents of questionable behavior involving you two. May I assume, then, that you don’t care for each other?”

Neither of them spoke. For some reason, that made her smile, and it concerned Yuri. If there was one useful thing he’d learned from Victor, it was to never trust _that_ smile from an adult.

“I’ll take your silence as agreement. You know, I’ve been this school board for almost 20 years, and I was a teacher before that. I like to believe that we do more here than teach ballet, that we help mold our talented, impressionable youths into well-rounded, disciplined adults. I think dismissing you now would be a waste of an opportunity.” She returned to her chair and took a seat before continuing. “‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’ Do either of you know who said that?”

“No.”

“No, Ms. Gallen.”

“It was Carl Jung.”

“So?” Yuri demanded, his patience at an end.

Ms. Gallen’s smile widened. “So here’s what’s going to happen. For the remainder of your participation in this program, you will share the same room, take all the same classes, and choreograph a one-minute piece besides.”

Nikolai gasped.

"What?" Yuri couldn't believe this was happening. "We don't have time for that!"

“I don't expect you to succeed, Mr. Plisetsky. I simply expect you to try. You will also eat at the same table, by yourselves, and any free time must be spent in your room, together. You are banned from the student lounge.”

“But my—”

“I have to skate—”

“I have been made aware of your situations,” she continued, “and will consult with both your coaches so that your ice time is conducted in tandem. And Yuri,” she cautioned, “I know you don’t want to be here, but don’t think defying me will result in your expulsion. Your father called yesterday and it seems his business is forcing him to extend your visit with us. I would hate to contradict him.”

“Why?” Nikolai asked, eyes wide with the same horror Yuri felt. “I mean, Ms. Gallen, why together?”

“Poetry, Mr. Plisetsky. And what is ballet if not poetry in motion? You’ll either learn to live with each other,” she explained, “or punish yourselves far better than I ever could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading!
> 
> Some of Ms. Gallen's dialogue is borrowed or adapted from the film The Parent Trap starring Haley Mills. 
> 
> Trivia: The thing with the iPhone commercial happened to me while looking for songs to use. I was on YouTube, waiting for the video to load, and it came on. It seemed fitting.
> 
> Next time: All About My Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> All translations from Google Translate, the school's name is made up, and I know nothing about ballet or how dance camps are conducted, so liberties have been taken.


End file.
